Streaming the police?

[Mike_NZ]

If you set a stream up on this site that is related to Australia, only mention it here.
There has been a fair amount of finger-pointing going on down here about the safety of staff and other things.
Most places down this way are very terse with the sources of these streams.

I, as a co-Admin of a site down here will ban anyone on receipt of a message that says anything like "Police Stream from XXXXXX area"

As I said, keep it here, that is where the stream comes from.
This comes about because of this article: LINK

But when the guy that has the stream comes onto our site advertising it, we get phone calls from the police.
The media (as they do) have made this a HUGE issue, imagine people being able to listen to the police?
It's only an issue now that every clown with a smart(dumb) phone will be able to hear the cops.
Scanning is more than the cops, it's more than the Emergency Services, scanning is hearing everything in the radio spectrum.
If you use it to only hear the police (police officers excepted), you need to get out more.

 

[longreach]

Hi there,

hasnt all NZ police gone encrypted in the urban areas (on their UHF allocations?) but the VHF is still in the clear?
Have to agree with you both streams i run are not solely dedicated to police and i wont have them that way too.
cheers
matt

 

[W8RMH]

People have been listening to the police since they got their first radios in the 1930's. This is nothing new. Up until the 1970's this could easily be done on any FM radio.

Is streaming police communications against the law in your country?

The information referred to in the article is considered "public information" here in the states. Most police agencies have "back" channels to use for sensitive information, using the dispatch channel for general/public information. We are having the same problems here though, resulting in many agencies now encrypting all their communications.

I spent over 20 years in law enforcement and never had a problem with a listener. Many times they were my eyes and ears and were an invaluable intelligence tool to me.

I stream two police agencies in my area and they have no problem with it. They know to switch channels if it is something sensitive and their citizens (they ones who pay for their new toys) can continue to listen to their routine traffic.

 

[zl2taw]

Hi there,

hasnt all NZ police gone encrypted in the urban areas (on their UHF allocations?) but the VHF is still in the clear?
Have to agree with you both streams i run are not solely dedicated to police and i wont have them that way too.
cheers
matt

Mike is talking about the Tasmanian police stream, not any NZ ones (as this is illegal in NZ)

Mike is based in NZ but is in the admin team for an Australian site

hope that is clear as mud

 

[longreach]

yeah ok, thought he may have been talking about NZ? although im still curious on NZ Police encryption.
I've heard some funny things re scanners in tas over the years.from reading various forums it seems about all you can scan is aircraft.
cheers
Matt